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Most people don't learn this until they've banged their heads against the wall for too long. And if you're building circuits on a large breadboard, you need to know this. Eleanor had built a fairly simple circuit, and it did not work. She asked for help, and Jonathan told her that she was missing a resistor. Easy fix. She added the resistor and... Nothing. She checked all her connections and they all seemed fine. So she returned with some photos of her circuit to get more input. Why isn't it working? I had a look, and at first sight, it all looked good. But then I saw it. The infamous discontinued line! Look at the red and blue lines in the breadboard drawing above. They are discontinued in the middle. That actually means the connection in the board is also discontinued. So if you connect a circuit like below, it won't work. Because the resistor isn't connected to the minus: To fix it, just add a jumper wire from the lower to the upper side: When I build circuits on boards like this, I usually add jumpers for plus and minus on both sides from the start to avoid thinking about this. PS! Whenever you're ready, here are two ways I can help you learn electronics:
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